First Figures for Arab WAB Army

Testing a variety of color schemes for my new Arab army.  The goal is to have a variety of colors scattered through out the army.  All too often my figures are too similar - unity in an army is an important quality to have, but I seem to take it to extremes at times.  So far I have found little information/inspiration for painting an Arab WAB army.  Osprey has a number of tiles for the time period - I purchased Armies of the Caliphates and Saracen Faris.  Both book depicted the solders of the period in a variety of primary (if pastel) colors with soft brown leather foot ware and gear.  Darrel Hindley creates a very different view of the Arab world with a controlled pallet of white and blue - check the bottom of his Figure Painter blog page.

Of the 6 figures - I’m most satisfied with the three in the front rank.  The primary color pattern is much cleaner than the three brown figures in the back row.  I really like the red - but a whole army in red robes would look too much like some chaos death cult.  On the next set of figures, I need to revisit the brown & see if I can create a softer result.

Paint List

All figures primed white and washed with a brown ink.

Spears:  Vermin Brown (GW)

Bows:  Tan Yellow (V)

Green: Orkhide Shade (GW), Snot Green (GW), 50/50 Snot Green/Ivory (V)

Red:  Burnt Cad. Red (V), Flat Red (V), Beige Red (V)

White:  Astronomican Grey (GW), white

Blue:  Ultramarine Blue (GW), 50/50 Ultramarine Blue/Ivory

Flesh:  Medium Flesh (V), Gryphonne Sepia (GW)   (Borrowed this wash hint from Five Armies)

Brown:  assorted combinations of Calthan Brown (GW), Iyanden Darksun (GW), Bubonic Brown (GW), Ivory, Sepia and Devlan Mud (GW)

Citadel Washes

When a dozen gamers get together and all think a new product rocks (and hell has not frozen over) - its time to pay attention.  The new Citadel Washes received high praise over at Dakka - surprised by the response, I bought a box to try out the washes myself.

One of the problems with my painting style is a lack of shade - and washes are a perfect way of restoring the shade/mid range/highlight balance on a finished figure.  Below are washed (left) and unwashed (right) pictures of the same Pirate model.  I was able to try out most of the washes provided in the box set:  shirt- Devlan Mud, pants - Badab black, vest- Baal Red, skin - Ogryn Flesh, sword - Asurmen blue.  I’m most impressed with Mud on the tan shirt.  Ogryn Flesh is a lot like the old Flesh Wash.  Baal Red did not do much on the vest - I really should give it another try using the Leviathan Purple instead.  Asurmen blue on the sword is a bit much for a “historical” pirate - but I supect that a mix of black and blue has a lot of potential as an armor wash.

Pair of Chaos Spawn

Pair of metal Chaos Spawn from Games Workshop.  The spawn on the right is converted with the head/torso from a flamer demon & has the back spines replaced with flamer arms.

Trio of Beastmen

A set of Beastmen dating to around 2003.  Originally painted for a dungeon crawl game played at the first Adepticon - I’d almost forgotten that I still owned these until I found them hanging out with the rest of the chaos army.

Reveiw: Master Basing Kit

Spectre Hobbies was good enough to provide a Master Class Scenery & Basing Kit for review here at Chicago Terrain Factory. The package includes 4 seasons of turf & static grass, long strand field grass, snow cover, assorted cork, wood chips, white glue, water effect, sand, Texture Paste - White, Mineral Texture Gel and a few supporting items such as bases and stir sticks. The kit retails for $21.99 and is a quick and affordable way to stock up a modeling collection.

Plus

My favorite components of the basing kit are the two jars of paste. The Texture Paste is a creamy white material which applies sort of like shaving cream. Mineral Texture Gel contains sand and does a fine job of adding grit to the base of a model. Use either to cover slota base holes or to provide dry brush ready texture. The Mineral Gel dries solid, but retains an elastic property - I found this the hard way when trying to cut holes for field grass. Once my jars run dry, I’ll be looking to restock from Spectre.

Weighing in at .2 oz, the bags of turf and static grass are more than enough for an army sized basing project. When finishing my Pirate project, I based 19 figures using both turf & flock and barely put a dent in the amount supplied. The color range is similar to ground covers sold by Woodland Scenics, adding the stronger colors sold by Noch would be a nice upgrade to this kit.

Push

I’m not sold 100% on cork as a rock substitute - it always seems to look a bit “corky”, but look at the example base to decide for yourself. Rather than supplying three types of cork, the kit might better supply single sheets with instructions to rip into rocks. I used one of the flat sheets on the base above and quickly began to generate my own cork rocks.

The one part water effect provides a high gloss finish to an already textured surface (see Texture Paste above). I’d rather have seen a 2 part kit included that is able to create a 3D water effect.

Minus

The field grass packages are much too small - creating 4 plugs for the pirate bases used up half of supplied grass.

The wood chips for use as slate are much too big. Of the two pieces, the smallest covers a 30mm base and the largest is better used on a CD sized base.

Full Disclosure: Spectre and CTF have an on going business relationship. This review is not compensated and not part of that relationship.

Pirate Crews

Getting ready for Adepticon next week with three pirate crews for the Legends of the High Seas demo table. Crews are constructed from Privateer Press Sea Dogs, Games Workshop Empire Militia, and Wargames Foundry Scurvy Dogs.  Paint plan is simple with brown, black/grey & beach bone with a primary color for each crew.

Sea Dog Pirate

Pirate Captain

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Captain

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Crew

Foundry Pirate Civilian

Sea Dog Pirate Captain

Sea Dog Pirate

Sea Dog Pirate

Sea Dog Pirate

Sea Dog Pirate

Baegor: Adepticon Masterclass

Baegor the One Horned painted for the Adepticon Masterclass auction.

The figure is cleanly sculpted and cast with an attached rocky base.  Detail on the model is crisp and easy to identify for painting.  Cast in two pieces, the left wing is separate and requires assembly. 

Assembling the wing joint was a bit of a chore.  The figure comes with a small peg and hole as an attachment point.  Not trusting the peg to hold the metal pieces together, I used (an over-sized) pin vise bit to drill a pin hole.  The bit was much to large for the wing & ripped through the outer skin of the model.  (Ever pin a Daemonette or anything by Rackham?  It was sort of like that.)  Plan B was to fill the hole with super glue and stuffed a ball of green stuff into the void.  GS does a marvelous job of taking super glue and bonding metal parts together over large gaps. 

Paint plan is white primer with GW brown ink base coat.  Body is GW Dark Flesh blended to highlight with Vallejo Flat Red.  Wings are GW bleachbone with GW brown ink wash.  Details in light grey and bleachbone.  Metals in bright silver and gold with brown ink wash.

Chaos Lord and Chaos Warrior Chariot

Chaos Lord on mount. Weapon is a converted beastman sword with extended pommel.

Chaos Warrior Chariot. Look closely and you’ll be able to spot the halberd from the chaos lord kit.

Wyrd Chronicles Ezine released

Wyrd Miniatures has released a new 46 page Ezine called Wyrd Chronicles. The magazine contains a healthy batch of background information on the Wyrd mini sets, an interview with the company founder, tips for figure bases, sculpting walk thru, as well as tantalizing pics of some upcoming releases.  The file is a bit large & not the sort of thing I normally read online - I’ll need to “borrow” the company printer tomorrow to get a hard copy for some in-depth reading.

Chaos Spawn

Why bother with GW Spawn kits when you can create your own?  Can never have too many spawn when playing with Morghur.

Plastic wolf with beastman upper body and green stuff scales.

Plastic wolf with banner pole head and green stuff scales.

The beast army box has a picture of men turning into beasts. What better spawn then a pair of Empire militia men being torn in two by the forces of chaos.

Archive GW Fiend.